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Thoughts From The Publisher’s Desk

Ocean City doesn’t want people walking around looking like fools with their pants on the ground. Okay, I couldn’t resist that slight take-off from the American Idol auditions last season.

At the end of this week’s Mayor and Council meeting, Councilman Brent Ashley expressed a popular sentiment among some circles. He is seeking to ban the public exposure of “butt cracks” in Ocean City, referring to the popular saggy pants look that many people don these days on the Boardwalk and elsewhere. Ashley seemed to have some support from his council colleagues, and City Solicitor Guy Ayres will reportedly investigate the city’s options.

There are numerous precedents to review here. While there are some towns and counties who have anti-saggy pants laws on their books, most of the bills deal specifically with schools. With Ocean City not being home to any schools, those laws may or may not be relevant.

My guess is Ocean City will not move forward with an ordinance on this issue, but if it does a wave of publicity will surely come the resort’s way. It will be positive and negative, according to a sampling from our Facebook posts on the topic this week.

For what it’s worth, President Obama weighed in on the situation during a town hall meeting hosted by MTV in 2008. “I think passing a law about people wearing sagging pants is a waste of time. Having said that, brothers should pull up their pants,” he said.

I don’t agree with the president about much of anything these days, but I’m on his page on this one.

It was interesting to learn this week that the Dew Tour’s exposure of Ocean City could be leading to more national television appearances for the resort.

As a diehard NFL fan, I am most excited to hear about the proposed pitch Tourism Director Deb Turk received from the producers of a show that takes professional football players out of their element and records their reactions. Specifically, the show takes the football players fishing around the world and Ocean City is reportedly being considered as a site to take these guys offshore white marlin fishing. That sounds like excellent exposure for the resort as does the fact Turk said the city was contacted by a large music festival as a possible host.

Whether it’s a result of the Dew Tour or just ordinary marketing efforts is unknown, but either way it’s exciting to hear about these opportunities.